SHIPS BY BARD

by Joan K. Yanni

James Fisk, Jr.

The portrait of a Hudson River steamboat now hangs to the right of the sofa in the American Folk Art/Decorative Arts gallery. The steamship, the James Fisk, Jr., a double-ended ferryboat with a side paddlewheel, is typical of the steamers that sailed the Hudson River and Long Island Sound in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  Steamship James Fisk Jr. (65.60) was painted by American James Bard in 1870. The painting, oil on board, presents the port side of the white ship in careful detail. She is a proud ship, showing her patriotism through the colorful American flags flying from every part of her deck. Like other of Bard’s paintings, it is drawn to scale and so accurate that it is said shipbuilders could rebuild their boats by studying a work such as this. The ship in the background is the Bristol. Railroad magnate Jim Fisk, a powerful financier whose colorful life ended in a scandalous shooting, owned both ships. But that is a different story. 

Before Robert Fulton’s Claremont made its trip up the Hudson in 1807, quiet, graceful sailing ships provided the means of travel over water and the inspiration for artists. The new steamships, with noisy engines, billowing smoke and splashing paddle wheels. changed the sound and look of the river forever.  The Hudson became one of the major arteries of the new country, carrying goods between Albany and New York City, taking the latest fashions up river, and lumber and farm produce down.   important, the steamboats made travel easier, and passengers rather than goods became the ship owners’ main concern.

Two artists who specialized in painting these vessels were James and John Bard, twin brothers born in New York City in 1815. Self-taught, they painted their first picture when they were 12, and for years they worked in close collaboration. Both frequently used the signature J. Bard, or J & J Bard, and it is difficult to tell who painted a particular work.  It is thought that James probably supplied the drawings and John the color, figures and backgrounds, though this is pure supposition. The last paintings jointly signed were dated 1849. Apparently the brothers went in separate ways after that date, and John died in 1856.

Paintings signed by James alone appeared from 1850 on. As shipbuilding increased, so did the demand for ship paintings. James painted Reindeer, then the fastest ship on the Hudson, in 1850.   A year later owner Thomas Collyer commissioned him to paint the Henry Clay, which had succeeded Reindeer as fastest and most popular. James was now painting most of the important boats launched, and he maintained a clientele of the important steamboat owners, captains, and leading shipbuilders of the time, both on the River and on Long Island Sound. He made drawings of every steamboat built around the port of New York.  No other painter of ships was as esteemed by the shipbuilding gentry as was Bard.

An American primitive painter, Bard was not concerned with competing with the academic artists of his time. He wanted   only   to   present   the   ships   he  was  painting as realistically as possible, and he painted them in minute detail.

He seems to have begun each work with a sketch of the ship’s hull up to the main deck, choosing whatever length suited his paper or the client’s specifications.  Then he divided the length of the main deck into equal sections, based on the actual length of the vessel. (In many of his drawings his measuring marks can be seen.)  Having carefully worked up his drawing on paper, he would submit it to his client for corrections, if any.  Once approval was given, he would proceed with the painting of the final work.

Apparently he did his coloring in the studio rather than from real life, for his drawings include color notes arrowed in to the actual objects to be colored. Sometimes he would write a separate paragraph for his own guidance, such as the following from the drawing of the towboat Eliza Hancox:  “The deck rail is flesh couler, the Fender or guard is Indian red. Blinds in Pilate House yellow.  Wheil (wheel) tops yellow, upper deck yellow. Working Beam is oak.”

Generally Bard finished his work in oil on canvas, though sometimes he would color the preliminary drawing with tempera or watercolors; some have been colored faintly with crayon. As many as 450 of his works are known to be in museums or privately owned.

The characteristics of a Bard painting are so definite that even an unsigned work can be easily recognized.  He showed his subjects broadside, on the port side, to avoid painting any but the simplest perspective. A Bard hallmark is the unusual, almost bubbly, stippling of the water at the ship’s bow. Undefined trees and hills, occasionally dotted with two-dimensional houses, make up the setting of the picture.  Nearly all buildings are the same size, no matter how far away they seem to be.  It seems as though he deliberately created neutral backgrounds so that his ships would stand out in the composition.

When he introduced figures into his canvases, they were often strange characters in high silk hats and long black coats, men with short legs and long bodies who look uncomfortable and out of place on shipboard. In his later paintings he avoided showing people, often only a man at the wheel. Occasionally he omitted even the pilot, showing a vessel apparently guiding itself.

Bard lived until 1897. His last painting was a portrait of the ship Saugerties, done in 1890 and signed “J. Bard N. Y. 75 years.”  Painting ships was not a lucrative business. Despite his large body of work, his last years were lean ones during which he survived only through the help of his daughter, a seamstress. His legacy was a maritime history, an incomparable pictorial record of the imagination and skill of shipbuilders and of Hudson River shipping in the 19^thcentury.

Sources: Jean Lipman and Tom Armstrong, eds, American Folk Painters of Three Centuries, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1980; curatorial files.